Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) Page 8

  “I know you,” he said. “I’ve known you since the first time you looked at me.”

  “How?”

  “You’re a kindred spirit,” he said, lowering his mouth to my shoulder. “We’ve both been shut inside of ourselves too long. And now we’re free.”

  I tilted my head, letting him graze my neck with sharp white teeth. He was right – I’d shut down my emotions years ago, and now they were all rushing out at once. For the first time I didn’t care about the fallout from my actions, or what might happen tomorrow. I wanted to feel, I wanted to live, and damn the consequences.

  I arched my back with the euphoria of his kisses and slid deeper on his erection. “You’re trying to make me come, aren’t you?” he said, tightening his grip on my hips.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want you to come in my ass.”

  He groaned, a throaty sound of male hunger. His thrusts were rough and fast now, completely unrestrained. “You make me so hard. Say that one more time.”

  “Come in my ass,” I said, my head thrown back against his shoulder. “Take me, Marc.”

  Arms entwined behind me, I couldn’t think, or move, or feel anything but the searing depth of his stiff cock. It was too much for me – too painful, too pleasurable, too intimate – and there was no escaping it.

  “I wanted this the first time we met,” he said, mouth against my ear. “I fantasized about it that night and came three times thinking about you.”

  “Three times?” I whispered, my cheeks flaming.

  “And even that wasn’t enough.” He pushed a hand between my sticky thighs and covered his palm with my juices. “You like knowing I jerked off to you, don’t you? You like knowing I’m going to come inside you right now.”

  I could barely gasp a yes as he lightly fingered my clitoris. Using the only power I still had, I clenched my muscles tightly. I felt him throb in response, and his breath accelerated in time with his hips. A moment later, he lost control and came with a violent tremor of ecstasy.

  “Beautiful girl,” he groaned, pulling my ass up and back to take him to the root. I could hardly breathe from the force of his thrusts, which seemed to scorch every inch of my skin. By the time his movements slowed, I felt weak and shaky, totally consumed.

  He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his face into the curve of my shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked, still swollen inside me.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

  “If you’re not sure, it sounds like you need to come.”

  I smiled at him in the mirror. “My punishment’s over already?”

  “For now,” he said with a sexy grin. “Kneel for me.”

  After freeing my ankles, he helped me down to the carpet. Lying naked on his back, he slid underneath me and grasped my waist in his hands. I spread my legs and lowered myself, first onto his soft lips and then his wet, warm tongue. As if to demonstrate the range of his sexual skills, he licked me with supreme gentleness, an arousing contrast to the thorough ass-fucking I’d just received.

  “I love tasting you,” he said, kissing along the sensitive seam of my thigh. “You’re so sweet and wet.”

  “I’m wet for you,” I whispered.

  Though I couldn’t touch him, I slid back and forth, letting him lap me from ass to clit and fuck me with his tongue. In one night he’d devoured every part of me. His hands trailed slowly up my sides, from my waist to my ribs and finally, to my breasts. He squeezed my nipples as he kissed my clit again and again, in a sensual rhythm so intense that I came in a sudden, shaking rush. The core of my body pulsated, every cell rippling with a pleasure that flamed through my blood.

  “Marc,” I gasped, my lips quivering from another explosion.

  Even after I came he licked me, refusing to let me up until he’d tasted me to his satisfaction. I squirmed and moaned above him, oversensitized but too excited to stop. When he finally let me go and got up, my legs almost collapsed under me.

  Taking my shoulders, he helped me stand. “Lean on me,” he said. “I won’t let you fall.”

  Facing me toward the mirror, he untied the ropes carefully, not rushing, taking pride in his knots. “For a long time I thought all that practice would be for nothing,” he said.

  “You just had to be patient.”

  He kissed the nape of my neck. “Yes. And you were absolutely worth the wait.”

  I stretched out each arm, letting my muscles flex and relax. My skin tingled as if I’d just woken up. “I feel tranquilized,” I said.

  “It’s the endorphins,” he said. “Your reward for enduring a little pain.”

  “Well, it wasn’t pain, exactly. It was something in between.”

  “Are you saying you liked your punishment?” he asked.

  I rested my forehead against his chest and let out a long, satiated sigh. “Like doesn’t approach how I feel right now.”

  After he coiled the rope and hung it back in the closet, we lay down on the bed, my back tucked into his chest. I was surprised that I was only a little sore. He stirred, squeezing me tightly with his powerful arms.

  “I realize we can’t solve everything with incredibly hot sex,” he said. “I want you to know you can talk to me. Is there anything else you want to ask about Lydia? My past?”

  “No,” I murmured, so relaxed that a single word took all my energy.

  “Well, I have something to ask you, then.”

  I looked at him over my shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Are you really going to leave after our trip to Provence?”

  I’d avoided even thinking about leaving and now I knew why. The mere idea of leaving Marc felt like a punch to the chest.

  “I have to go home sometime,” I said, though I had little to go home for. I had no pending work assignments and could sublet my apartment if I needed to. New York was starting to seem like the place where I’d once lived, not the place where I lived now.

  “Why don’t you consider staying for a while after that?” he asked, his voice low and tempting.

  I closed my eyes, searching for a scrap of strength. They were the words I’d been longing to hear, but they were a trap. Say yes, and he’d have exactly what he wanted – a willing submissive at his beck and call, just like Lydia. How long could I go on like this, living from day to day with no care for my work or the future? Would I ever be me again?

  “You’re wondering what it would be like to stay, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, though that barely scratched the surface.

  “Listen, I’ve thought about this all day. I can’t give up what we do in bed together. I can say I’d try but it wouldn’t be the truth.”

  “Why could you stop with other women?”

  With two fingers, he stroked my hip in a mesmerizing pattern. “Because you bring out something in me. It isn’t the way you look, although that’s part of it. There’s just something indefinable between us. You felt it the night we met, didn’t you?”

  His hopeful tone gave me a rush of tenderness. “I did, Marc,” I said. “But won’t continuing this way drive you crazy? You’ve been trying to escape it for years.”

  “Maybe I should trust that you can handle it. You’re not emotionally fragile like Lydia was.”

  I rolled away from him and sat up, hugging my knees to my chest. “No, I’m not. And you can’t go on punishing yourself for the actions of other people.”

  He slipped both palms behind his head. “It’s not their actions, Sophie, it’s my own. I’ve never allowed this to go on for more than a few months. I don’t know what will happen if I do.”

  “You might get bored of it,” I said.

  His eyes flashed with conviction. “Never.”

  “But what about last night? You were ready to give it all up over a scratch on my wrist.”

  He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Last night was…a reaction to feeling that I’d hurt you without meaning to. I can’t allow this to damage you. It has to stay under
my control.”

  “But you can’t control everything, Marc. There’ll always be unintended consequences. That’s just life.”

  “It’s not my life,” he said. “I won’t let it be. Not as far as you’re concerned.”

  Instead of responding, I slid my hand around his cheek. No man had ever cared enough about me to try to change life’s basic rules, but Marc was doing his damnedest. I couldn’t help but love and even envy him for it.

  He really thought that with enough determination, he could force everything to work out. It was a beautiful fantasy, but that’s all it was. I’d lost that illusion a long time ago, so long now I wasn’t sure I’d ever believed it in the first place.

  Still, something about Marc made me want to try again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  For two blissful days, it felt like nothing could touch us.

  It was the weekend, leaving us free to indulge our desires all day long. On Saturday morning he shaved me with a straight razor, perching me on his bathroom vanity and sitting on a chair between my open legs. With light, careful strokes, he shaved my pussy down to the skin and then licked me to a shuddering orgasm in front of the mirror.

  The rest of the day I wore my leather collar and served him like a maid, dressing and undressing him, cooking lunch for him, washing the dishes in sheer lace boy shorts and heels while he watched from the table.

  “Now bend over and put the cutting board in the cabinet,” he said. “That’s right. All the way.”

  Later I got into the shower with him to wash his hair, soap his body, and finally, to suck him as I knelt on the shower floor. He’d been aroused for hours and it didn’t take long to satisfy him. Water streaming over his shoulders, he came on my breasts with his hand under my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye while he spurted across my cleavage.

  “You’re mine,” he said as he climaxed. “I own you now.”

  I was intoxicated with him. Totally, incurably in love.

  On Monday morning, he dreamt about entering me from behind and woke up aroused, wanting me before he left for work. I knelt on the floor by the bed, receiving his hard shaft with my wrists tied in front of me. He took his pleasure quickly and left me unsatisfied, promising to reward my patience when he got home that night.

  I knew I’d long for him all day, thinking of him as I wore the dress and lingerie he’d set out for me. This morning, he’d chosen a pale purple lace thong, a matching corset, and gray stockings with a sleek satin garter belt. Hanging in the closet was a dark blue dress that plunged low in the front, showing the faint trail of freckles between my breasts.

  Marc made me breakfast and, after a long kiss, went to work. I was insanely happy, lingering at the table with coffee until it was time to get ready for my lunch at a new brasserie. After putting on makeup I quickly straightened the bedroom, hanging a crop back in the closet, making the bed, and tossing clothes in the hamper.

  Humming to myself, I grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the front door and went down to the lobby.

  I was just stepping onto the sidewalk when I saw him – Trevor, standing at the corner in the drizzle with his hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans.

  Shit. Was I supposed to meet him this morning? Was that what I’d told Julia the last time she texted me?

  On instinct I turned to duck back inside, but he’d already seen me. “Sophie!” he shouted, jogging toward me in his Yankees cap and fleece jacket.

  “Trevor. Hi.”

  “Whoa,” he said, looking me up and down. “Look at you, all dressed up. Going somewhere fancy?”

  “To a restaurant. On assignment.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve been waiting out here,” he said. “I was about to call you. Did you forget we were meeting at eleven?”

  “I guess I did. I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy.” Yeah. Busy having torrid sex with Marc on every possible household surface.

  “This’ll only take a minute. Can we go inside? It’s starting to rain.”

  “Um –” I glanced back at the door. There had to be a way to put him off. “I thought you were on your way to the airport.”

  “Not until later,” he said. “I have to go back to the hotel to check out.”

  “Well, I’d rather talk out here, if that’s okay.”

  “In the rain?” he asked, frowning. “Why, somebody up there?”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “No, I just – it’s not my apartment.”

  “Please, Sophie. I don’t want to do this on the street, okay?”

  The door opened and out stepped a woman in her late fifties wearing a pink bouclé jacket. She had on huge dark sunglasses in spite of the gray sky. I moved aside to let her pass.

  “Bonjour,” she said, nodding at us.

  Trevor reached out and held the door before it could close. “Come on,” he said, stepping inside. “What floor?”

  I went in after him, my heels echoing on the marble floor. “Trevor – what are you doing? We can’t go upstairs.”

  “Come on. I just wanna talk for a second.” The elevator door sprang open with a loud ring as soon as he pressed the button. “Look at that. All ready to go.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Going up?”

  He got in. I had no choice but to get in next to him. “I don’t know why we have to do this inside,” I said.

  “You’ll see.”

  I stared straight ahead. If Trevor didn’t make this fast, I’d have to change my restaurant reservation. The brasserie was so popular they probably had no open tables for the rest of the day.

  “I don’t have much time,” I said, walking down the hall ahead of him. With an impatient twist of the wrist, I opened the door with my key. The alarm sounded and I silenced it with four quick jabs.

  “Maybe that’ll change,” Trevor said. He strode inside, looking around. “He owns this place, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm.” He sniffed critically at the crowded bookshelves and framed photographs, the huge abstracts on the walls, the caricature drawing of me propped on the fireplace mantel.

  “That you?” he asked, peering at it.

  “Yup.”

  “Thought so. Kinda weird, isn’t it?”

  I crossed my arms. “Why did you want to see me?”

  “Sure, I’ll take a cup of coffee, thanks.” He smiled in a way that was meant to be charming but wasn’t.

  I left him in the living room and made a very strong cappuccino using the machine in the kitchen. By the time I got back Trevor was sitting on the couch with an ankle thrown over his knee, his jacket on the cushion beside him.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the cup and loudly slurping a sip.

  “What have you been doing for the last week?” I asked.

  “My buddy works at the Google office here. He’s been showing me around town.”

  “Oh.” I snuck a glance at my watch. I’d be late, but maybe the restaurant would hold my table if I called. I hoped they would understand my horrible French over the phone.

  “Sit down, okay?”

  It was easier to sit than argue. I took the chair beside the couch and crossed my legs.

  “You look good in heels,” he said. “Better than those ballet things you used to wear all the time.”

  “I still wear them.”

  “Uh oh,” he said, and grinned.

  I gave him a brief false smile. Maybe that was why he was here – to insult my shoes.

  He looked down at his lap as if collecting his thoughts, then back at me. “Listen, we were together a long time. I know I blew it, but it doesn’t mean you weren’t important to me. You were. You still are.”

  I felt nothing but boredom. How long was he going to go on talking? When could I leave?

  “I didn’t know how much I loved you until you were gone,” he went on, his eyebrows lifting in the middle. “I’m just really sorry about what I did. I was drunk and we were fighting a lot. I know it’s not an excuse.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate
that. I don’t mean to rush you, but I really am late.”

  “This won’t take long.” He put down his coffee and shifted, reaching into his front pocket. His mouth flattened as he tried to suppress a smile.

  I looked down at his hand. In his palm was a small blue velvet box.

  “It’s for you,” he said, holding it out to me.

  Not knowing what else to do, I took it. The top made a little creak as it opened. Inside was a diamond solitaire, probably two carats, cut into an emerald shape.

  I was so stunned I could hardly make sense of it. Was this an engagement ring? Could he possibly be serious?

  “Trevor,” I said, my voice filled with pity. It must have taken all of his savings and then some to buy this.

  His eyes were misty. “Marry me, Sophie. I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I know you’re with this Marc guy to get back at me, and I probably deserve it. But you’ve made your point and now I want you to come home.”

  I struggled for a response that wouldn’t sound cruel. “This is a very sweet gesture, Trevor.”

  Doubt flashed across his face as it occurred to him, evidently for the first time, that I might turn him down. “I love you so much,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, though I didn’t, and never had. “And the ring is absolutely beautiful.”

  “But?”

  “But I don’t think marriage is a good idea.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “Why not?”

  “Because I think I’m in love with someone else. Actually, I know I am.” The words hung harshly in the air.

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “You can’t be. It’s only been a month and you’re on the rebound.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, but that’s how I feel right now.”

  “At least take some time to think about it.”

  “I already have,” I said, standing. I closed the ring box carefully and handed it back to him. “It’s gorgeous, and I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted things to turn out.”

  He stared at me, his features twisting into something ugly and strange. “So that’s it?” he said, bumping the coffee table as he got up and splashing cappuccino on the glass top. “You’re just going to throw me out?”